Establishing Baselines for Stone Tool Variation Across the Early Pleistocene: A Least Effort Approach

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Variability: A Reassessment of Its Meaning, Afforded Range, and the Relation to Process" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Our understanding of the evolution of human behavior is largely predicated on how stone tools vary through time and across space. Despite a long history of research, the behavioral processes associated with Early Pleistocene lithic technology remain debated. Some research suggests that lithic variation reflects socially transmitted information governing the technical decisions of hominin knappers. In contrast, others argue that this variation is simply a product of its environmental context. However, research still lacks a basic understanding of how much variation can arise due to stochastic processes. Here, we present experimental work designed to investigate the behavioral significance of Early Pleistocene lithic technology using a randomized knapping protocol. We reduced a series of blanks by using a random number generator to determine the location of each flake removal. A series of 3D analyses were then used to compare the morphological and technological variation produced by this experiment to core and flake technology from the Koobi Fora Formation. Our comparison shows that a substantial amount of the lithic variation from Koobi Fora can be generated by randomly removing flakes. These results provide a useful baseline to discuss the mechanisms driving stone tool variation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Variability: A Reassessment of Its Meaning, Afforded Range, and the Relation to Process   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37450.0